1992 saw the appearance of Sterling's first nonfiction book, The
Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier, a work
of investigative journalism exploring issues in computer crime and civil liberties.
Sterling released the entire text of the book on the Internet as non-commercial
"literary freeware," and maintains a long-term interest in electronic user rights
and free expression. Other nonfiction work by Sterling has appeared in The
New York Times, Newsday, Whole Earth Review, Details,
Mondo 2000, bOING bOING, and Wired. December 2002 will
see the publicaiton of his latest non-fiction title, Tomorrow Now: Envisioning
the Next Fifty Years.

In addition to these activities, Sterling
also founded the Dead
Media Project, a mailing list and discussion group dedicated to studying
the "life and death" of now-defunct media. In 1999, he began the Viridian
design movement, which advances environmental consciousness through
revolutionary art and design.

Originally published in 1989, "We See Things Differently" reads less like a
science fiction story and more like a political thriller. This story aptly demonstrates
why Sterling is highly regarded as a futurist as well as a science ficiton writer.